LRG Complete 3.0 out of Beta

Joe Capra has announced the release of LRG Complete 3.0 final. The website gallery with Digital Delivery via Paypal is out of beta.
"We are happy to announce the release of LRG Complete 3 as a final version! Well final in that its not Beta anymore. I will no longer support any previous versions of the LRG Complete template so EVERYONE should upgrade to this new version. Please delete any previous versions of this template from your Lightroom installation and install the current version. Your user presets should remain the same and can be applied to this new version, however, there are some new settings in this new version so you will need to save a new preset to include the new settings."

Go to Lightroom Galleries to read about it.

Anatomy of a Lightroom HTML Gallery

Lightroom HTML galleries used to be written in a mix of XSLT and XML. The simpler coding in Lua makes it a pleasure to create HTML galleries with. You can write Flash galleries in Lua, but because IE doesn't allow plugin loading on PC Lightroom, you can't see them in the preview window. Hence 3rd party Flash galleries use the old method for cross platform compatibility.

Lua galleries were introduced in Version 1.3 and have matured somewhat with V2.0. The new syntax is much tidier and more compact. In fact Matthew Campagna shaved 500 lines off one of his galleries for version 2, and my new website in a gallery LRB Portfolio managed close to that also.

So what comprises a Lua Gallery? Well the absolute minimum a gallery can contain is 3 files: galleryInfo.lrweb, manifest.lrweb and a HTML file. Let's look at them in a little more detail:

galleryInfo.lrweb: This is the heart of the gallery and the file Lightroom uses to define the internals of the gallery and the contents of the panels in the Right panel. In this file you define the control variables, the checkboxes, the sliders and all the other controls of the gallery. You can create custom style sheet through the code here (however, it's not truly a Cascading Style Sheet as it doesn't output in your assigned order).

manifest.lrweb: This file tells Lightroom what files to include with the gallery, along with the HTML pages used. You can include image files, CSS files, Javascript files and others with this file.

HTML file: This is the base file for the gallery. It makes calls to variables defined in galleryInfo.lrweb and the custom.css file that is created from it.

The mix of all three is what builds the gallery. You can add your own CSS files and site HTML to the HTML and easily integrate it into your current site design. We'll be looking at this in more detail in future posts.

In the next post, we start looking at galleryInfo.lrweb in more detail.

Pimping your Identity Plate.

I secretly have been hoping someone would ask about the cool fonts I've been using in my ID plates and Copyright Watermarks. But of course noone has. Shame really because it would lead me to telling you about my favourite place for comic books fonts on the net. They're even free..

Yep... Free. Of course they do sell fonts as well, but they have a wealth of the coolest free fonts to use to create your Identity Plate. And they are Blambot. Check them out. Cracked is one of my favourites, but isn't there any more. Recently I've been using Crime Fighter and my new, about to be released, Website in a Gallery: LRB Portfolio, uses Mainframe. Seriously though have a look..

Getting a hard copy of your Identity Plate

So you spent a bit of time playing with fonts and colours, and you're pretty happy with the results for your new Identity Plate. Of course, if you create a new catalog, it's not there. And if something happens the current catalog (God forbid), you've lost that work. Personally I keep all the ID Plates I design in a folder called 'ID Plates', that way I can choose one as needed (remember I also use the ID plates for frames and textures in Print and Slideshow!).

Here's a quick way to get a hard copy (I'm not referring to the Save menu in Identity Plate setup here, which to me is a 'soft copy').
1. After creating your Identity Plate, go to Web.
2. With a few images selected and the Identity Plate on in your gallery, export the gallery. The Lightroom HTML gallery is a good one to use.
3. Go to the folder you just exported.
4. Open the folder marked 'contents'.
5. Inside is a file called 'logo.png'. This is a graphical version of your ID Plate. Save it to your ID Plates folder, with a new name.
6. That's it. Once you've moved the logo.png file, you can delete the gallery you exported (unless you were going to upload it of course!)


This allows you to work on a number of designs, and can be used with a watermarking Export Plugin like LR/Mogrify.
If you want to switch to this hard copy, save the soft copy in the drop down menu, and choose 'Use a graphical identity plate' from the Identity Plate setup dialog and then choose the 'logo.png' file (or however you named it). Remember to rename if you plan on creating a few, so that you don't overwrite the older versions.

TTG Shadowbox Gallery Updated to 2.7

Matthew Campagna has announced that TTG Shadowbox Gallery 2.7 is now available. This update requires Adobe Lightroom 2.0 and contains the following changes:

• Upgraded to Shadowbox 2.0 and Mootools 1.2.


• Shadowbox GUI now supports 29 languages.


• Implemented BoxOver hovers on thumbnails, color labels and selection checkboxes.


• Automatically reads Color Labels and Color Label Sets from the Library module.


• Revamped the selection gallery.


• Added optional thumbnail ID plates.


• Added Output Sharpening.


• Ratings are out in favor of the improved color label support.

There are a few other changes. Because Shadowbox 2.0 is quite different from 1.0, skins are out until further notice and a few options that are either no longer relevant or no longer options were removed.

Keyword Export issue fix

Adobe has published a technote containing a script that fixes the 'Include On Export' issues users are seeing with their keywords. The note details ways of solving the issue with or without the V1.x Catalog available.